Monday, May 26, 2014

DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK: BIG BUSINESS AND GENERAL MOTORS

I would sure like to know how 99% of the CEO's of major companies got where they are because brains certainly wasn't one of the reason. Retail information was released this week and in what can only be described as a complete lack of surprise, most stores are dying. The ones that aren't cater to high end luxury items because those people have money while the rest of us starve. GM takes the grand prize for actually killing their customers and have watched their profits plunge as a result. Let's see those runner ups.

1)EBAY- My computer got hacked this week which cost me a fortune to repair as the malware was military grade and actually fought off attempts to get rid of it. I don't know if it had anything to do with what I write about but it is odd that I would be infected on purpose by a foreign IP address that was logging all my keystrokes yet didn't even try to steal any of my money. Too bad for them my identity can't be stolen, nor can my credit card information due to security I have on all of that. As a result I am upgrading my computer, my anti-hacking software and will soon be moving to encrypted passwords. Good luck douchebags. But the fact remains that all of this could be because fucking EBAY is to goddamned cheap to encrypt their info and, as a result, info from 145 million was stolen. Then these ass clowns never bothered to tell anyone for three whole months. I had to find out about it on the Internet. All of this info could be protected if they wanted it to be but these morons are too cheap to spend the capital to do so. We should run anyone like Ebay or Target out on a rail for playing fast and loose with our info for no other reason than they are cheap bastards.

2)The Duggars- Will some one please spay and neuter these fuckwads who are directly contributing to the overpopulation problem already? Apparently not happy with the 19 kids they have, 47 year old Mrs. Duggar recently miscarried which is God's way of saying ENOUGH! So now they are going to a fertility clinic whose doctor who is treating them should really be losing his license to practice medicine for this. Question one should be "How many kids do you have?" and if the answer is more than two then they should be shown the door. How come abortion is so abhorrent to the religious right but playing God with fertility is perfectly fine? Someone please start dosing these idiots with salt peter and the morning after pill.

3)The Tea Party- As predicted in this column, the Tea Party way overstepped their boundaries with the government shutdown causing businesses to lose billions. Once they saw the dog biting the hand that fed them, they turned around and crushed them in the primaries, with not one Tea Party candidate winning any primary anywhere. As a matter of fact, it wasn't even close. McConnell, whose popularity is someone between navel lint and the latest Adam Sandler movie, easily beat his challenger Mark Bevin, who repeated all the mistakes of his Tea Party brethren by giving a speech at a pro-cock fighting rally recently. Genius. Some in the Tea Party are starting to wake up to the fact that 99% of politicians suck, including almost everyone on the right. But there are not enough to counter the morons who are still screaming about Benghazi at the top of their lungs.

4)PetCo and PetSmart- It came out this week that thousands of dogs were killed from eating tainted jerky treats from China. The really sad part about this is that this is really old news. I used to have two dogs back in the mid-90's. Before the Internet, my girlfriend and I had already heard about this and made sure not to buy any treats from Brazil or China because pets were dying. IT'S FUCKING 2014 AND THIS WAS STILL GOING ON?! Anyone who lost a pet from this ultimate greedy action should sue because you can prove they knew about this for more than a decade. Companies do not care about anything but the bottom line and anymore and it has to stop.

5)Global Cooling idiots- I am constantly bombarded with right wing loons who keep showing me articles from the 70's that said the world was getting cold or one from the UK Independent from 2000 saying winters were a thing of the past. The thing both have in common is that they were wrong. There was never any scientific consensus ever that this was occurring, the very definition of fringe theory. As a matter of fact, the scientist who came up with this in the 70's recently came forward to say he was wrong and all evidence points toward temperatures going the other way. The world is getting warmer. Face facts.

6)Elliot Rogers- Another day, another shooting. This moron was pissed because no woman wanted to touch his winkie. The fact he was a raving loon probably had a lot to do with it. Can we please start putting people away who show obvious signs of lunacy as this ass did? He might as well have sent the police a detailed itinerary on his plans. Oh wait, he did.

7)Isla Vista police department- Turns out Rogers parents became aware of awful videos their son was posting and alerted police. They interviewed him and found no problems. However, for some insane reason, they never bothered to watch the videos that spelled out a different story. Way to not do your job. Where you guys too busy shooting some 90 year old woman in her bed or perhaps planting drugs on a black guy you didn't like the looks of? You certainly were not concerned with getting this loon off the streets.

8)Conspiracy nuts- If I hear of one more "false flag" bullshit be foisted on an obvious tragedy I am going to lose my mind. Yes the right wing loons are saying things like "all past shooters have left wing ideals," which flies in the face of reason. Even worse, some are saying it is yet another false flag like the Boston Bombing or Sandy Hook. They base this on the fact that some eyewitnesses swear they saw two shooters which, as anyone who have ever studied eyewitness testimony will tell you, is less reliable than the MSM and government statistics combined. People are TERRIBLE are recalling events under stress and every single study ever done confirms this. Add to this the fact that one victim's father rightfully said that our gun laws are getting people killed, while the crazies pointed to that as a reason why Obama was behind the whole thing. Regular readers know I do not agree with the left on gun control, but even I think our background checks need to be better as there is no way this loon should have allowed to get a weapon as he was seeing three therapists at the time. The videos alone should have gotten him banned. But the NRA is more concerned with weapon sales than weapon safety, not to mention eliminating the democratic party from the face of the Earth.

9)Business owners- The latest business information was released this week and it spells doom for this country. And what have business owners done about this? Absolutely nothing. Here are the sales numbers:

Wal-Mart Profit Plunges By $220 Million as US Store Traffic Declines by 1.4%

Sears Loses $358 Million in First Quarter as Comparable Store Sales at Sears Plunge by 7.8% and Sales at Kmart Plunge by 5.1%

JC Penney Thrilled With Loss of Only $358 Million For the Quarter

Kohl’s Operating Income Plunges by 17% as Comparable Sales Decline by 3.4%

Costco Profit Declines by $84 Million as Comp Store Sales Only Increase by 2%

Staples Profit Plunges by 44% as Sales Collapse and Closing Hundreds of Stores

Gap Income Drops 22% as Same Store Sales Fall

American Eagle Profits Tumble 86%, Will Close 150 Stores

Aeropostale Losses $77 Million as Sales Collapse by 12%

Best Buy Sales Decline by $300 Million as Margins Decline and Comparable Store Sales Decline by 1.3%

Macy’s Profit Flat as Comparable Store Sales decline by 1.4%

Dollar General Profit Plummets by 40% as Comp Store Sales Decline by 3.8%

Urban Outfitters Earnings Collapse by 20% as Sales Stagnate

McDonalds Earnings Fall by $66 Million as US Comp Sales Fall by 1.7%

Darden Profit Collapses by 30% as Same Restaurant Sales Plunge by 5.6% and Company Selling Red Lobster

TJX Misses Earnings Expectations as Sales & Earnings Flat

Dick’s Misses Earnings Expectations as Golf Store Sales Plummet

Home Depot Misses Earnings Expectations as Customer Traffic Only Rises by 2.2%

Lowes Misses Earnings Expectations as Customer Traffic was Flat

All of this was, according to "experts," because of "bad weather." However, during all this alleged bad weather than killed housing, auto sales and retail, high end luxury houses, autos and retail did just fine. Are they really suggesting that rich people will brave the cold while the rest of us are too freezing to leave the house? Please.

At the same time credit debt is exploding again, particularly in sub prime auto sales (which explains the bump in March for this) but much like the sub prime housing market, these are repossessions waiting to happen. The other factor is tuition debt which is another bubble waiting to explode.

The way to fix any of this is to raise the minimum wage, along with middle class salaries, start taxing the wealthy at a much higher rate and moving our work force from tanks and planes we don't need to infrastructure and green energy.

McDonalds was besieged by thousands of pissed off workers about the slave wages they get paid, arresting a hundred. As I have pointed out on my Facebook page, Denmark pays their employees $45,000 a year and their Big Mac combo meal is around $11. In other words, they make enough money to buy the products these companies are selling. When they don't, see the chart above as sales plummet.

GM takes the cake this week by having a paltry $35 million fine for killing as many as 300 people. Oh, that'll teach them as they made that amount of money in the time it takes for me to finish this sentence. Sales are plummeting as anyone who doesn't have a death wish is staying far, far away from these retro Pinto mobiles. So congratulations GM, you are indeed douchebag of the week.